


Trust no-one, not even yourself

by idioticfangirl



Series: The Avengers Team-Building Shenanigans [46]
Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Drinking, F/M, Fluff and Crack, Humor, M/M, Snark, Team, Team Bonding, Team Building, Team Dynamics, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 15:35:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17226695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idioticfangirl/pseuds/idioticfangirl
Summary: Surely the Avengers must be getting good at team exercises by now?





	Trust no-one, not even yourself

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lab_girl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lab_girl/gifts).



It wasn't exactly rare that the Avengers got a weekend off. Sure, you could never tell when an alien attack would occur (interestingly, Bruce told the group one night, it was statistically most likely to happen on a Thursday), but when the world wasn't under direct threat they didn't really have all that much to do. However, after a particularly persistant journalist managed to scale the height of Stark Tower just to get a picture of the group lounging around doing nothing, leading to public outcry about the 'lazy' generation that they were enabling, Fury had to send them somewhere, anywhere, in an attempt to get them back into favour.

 

Several phone calls later, some of which involved calling in favours and most of which involved some form of begging and/or grovelling, he had a solid plan. One that had been discussed multiple times with Coulson but which had been denied by claims that they weren't ready, that they were all children and it would result in more murder than it was worth. Of course, this probably hadn't changed, but Fury was desperate for a quiet weekend, even at the risk of a hectic following week.

 

And so it was that the Avengers stood, groaning, outside a hastily cleared out castle and grounds with the triumphant sign 'Manor Trust Retreat' on it.

 

"Hello," the woman that greeted them didn't even bother to smile. Coulson had called and explained what was probably going to go down, and she was even less pleased by this turn of events than the team. "I'm May, and I'll be picking you up and dropping you off at all of your activities today. I don't have anything else to do, you guys cancelled all of our other clients, so if you want me I'll be watching Netflix and pretending you don't exist. We have an itinerary, but it's always more fun if it's a surprise," here she smiled, although it was more menacing than endearing, and beckoned them into the hallway. "First is boomwhackers!" Ignoring all questions as to what in the fresh hell that was, she led them to a room and left them in the probably capable hands of an anxious-looking man with a thick moustache. 

 

He cleared his throat three times before being able to speak to them, which was disgusting. "Hello," he all but whispered, "I'm Steven, and I'll be with you for Boomwhackers." There was an onslaught of questions, and he raised his hands to get them to quiet down so he could explain, but was ignored by almost everyone in favour of grumbling loudly. When they eventually shut up enough to hear what he was saying, he gestured at some boxes behind him, which were overflowing with bright yellow tubes. "These are boomwhackers. We try to set the mood for the day with a light exercise in rhythm," this was clearly meant to sound exciting but the combination of his voice and the fact that the activity was bound to go wrong meant that no-one even cracked a smile. "Uh, just take one and hit it in time to the rhythm, I guess."

 

"I want everyone to know," Bruce announced, rubbing his forehead, "that this is exactly the kind of situation I try to avoid. Literally the exact opposite of what I ever want to be doing. If I hulk out, it's on all of you." Immediately after saying this there was a horrific, tuneless groaning noise, one that caused everyone to turn to Clint in abject horror and disgust, but for once it wasn't him.

 

"Um," Sam held up his 'boomwhacker', which, on closer inspection, turned out to be a groan tube. "Can I get another one or..." Peter picked up all five of the remaining sticks and said faux apologetically,

 

"There are none left, looks like you're stuck with that." Sam groaned loudly enough to rival the tube, tipping his head back and accidentally moving his hand in a way that set off the noise once more, going bright red as everyone laughed.

 

Despite the complete lack of excitement, Peter and Thor began to have the time of their life. For what was probably the first time ever they tried to do it properly, following the rhythm of the video Steven put on with ease, and hi-fiving between bits. Pietro, who was always a beat out no matter what he did, watched jealously, and made a mental note to attack Thor with more vigour than usual next time they played dodgeball.

 

By the time Vision had thrown his boomwhackers across the room in a fit of anger at apparently having no sense of rhythm, it had begun to dissolve into chaos. Even people that had started so well, like Tony, moved on from stylishly carrying out the task to other activities. In Tony's case these activities were hitting Steve's arse with the stick, while Steve considered faking an emergency just to get out of there. 

 

Wanda was using her sticks to hit other people's out of their hands, and Natasha was drumming on Wade's back. Wade himself had got whiplash from headbanging so hard, a fact which he was not letting hold him back. The final person hanging on to a shred of dignity was Clint, who was trying to take it seriously, but by the time Bucky had broken his boomwhacker over a chair and was using the two halves as drumsticks even he had given up.

 

Somewhere around Scott giving some nearby ants tiny sticks made from wood shavings and claiming they were his backup singers, Steven began desperately texting someone on his phone, and it was no surprise that a few minutes later May appeared again, covering her ears against the cacaphony as she gestured for the group to follow her, although to Steve's consternation most of them took the boomwhackers with them.

 

"We don't have the next activity set up yet because somehow we didn't expect you to make Steven fear for his ears, so you'll have to make do with another quick one." She opened a door that led into, much to the horror of everyone else, a kitchen.

 

"We're going to give you a list of instructions, and you're going to follow them. In the end, our tester -" here May gestured at a man who looked less than pleased to be here - "will sample each of your dishes in turn. Something tells me you're less inclined to poison him than you are each other."

"She worked us out early," Tony muttered, grinning around for someone to laugh at his joke, but any amused reactions that may or may not have occurred were covered over by Thor's genuine question.

"If he tastes food for a living, how is he so thin?" Steve bundled them into the kitchen faster than they had ever gone for food before, even Dominoes.

It didn't start well. Within seconds Wade was bored, asking himself (the only person that would listen), "What happens if I use sugar instead of salt? Cinnamon instead of pepper?" Cackling like a mad scientist, he poured the wrong ingredients in with vigour, and also vinegar, before looking about for someone to test his concoction on. "Ah, Peter, you're a student. Try this?" Peter dipped a finger in before Bruce, standing near Wade, could stop him, and licked it tentatively.

"That's amazing! Is mine going to taste like that?" he darted back to his own mixture before Wade could reply, leaving him staring at the teenager's back in unconcealed disgust, while Bruce shrugged and looked up,

"If it's unhealthy, he'll eat it. That kid is a walking sugar cube by now."

"Children," Wade sighed, and Bruce was only too happy to agree with the sentiment. With this unforeseen bond stretching between them, Wade was more than happy to distract himself by chatting, instead of messing with the laws of the kitchen, or physics.

One crisis averted, and another about to start. While Steve was distracted trying to convince Bucky that he didn't need that much seasoning, which was very difficult when the soldier seemed intent on making his breadcrumbs black with pepper and allspice, Vision surreptitiously changed over Tony's flour and icing sugar, taking a salty-sweet swap from Wade's book, who winked at him as he did so. As if the spices that hung in the air weren't enough, they began to be disturbed by Pietro zooming to and from the oven every 0.5 seconds, exclaiming to anyone that would listen and even some that wouldn't that if his food was in the oven for even one minute too long the world would end and he would cry.

Wanda waved her arms at Peter, trying to convince him to talk to Pietro. After a complicated game of charades involving her pointing to the oven and winking, Peter did as he was told, although whether or not he actually knew what was going on was anyone's guess. He never seemed to. Wanda, liking Peter more and more with each passing scheme he got involved in, changed the heat on Pietro's oven and counted down the minutes until complete Sokovian meltdown.

"Oh my god!" Tony wailed, causing Steve to turn so fast that he almost dropped his tray, "This is how I die!" Presumably, at this point, he was making a suitably dramatic facial expression, but it was hidden behind the cloud of white smoke that hazed around his face, "Suffocated by sweet flour!"

"Sweet flour?" Steve, safe in the knowledge that Tony wasn't dying, seemed more bemused than this by the rest, and suddenly seemed to become more aware of the fact that the air did taste surprisingly sweet, with a hint of - was that cinnamon? Before he could worry about what on earth his team had done now, Sam yelped,

"We've lost Scott!"

"How did you lose a grown man?" Steve rounded on poor Sam, who didn't deserve this, before Scott popped back into existence right where Sam had left him. "Sorry, sorry, I needed each grain of rice in the exact right position." 

Mere minutes after this near-disaster, a shrill cry alerted them to the fact that Wanda had significantly less butter than previously, and she eyed Sam. "All those times you hugged me from behind and I said you were being cute!" she exclaimed, chasing him around the kitchen with a spatula.

Taking a deep breath, and removing his tray from the oven to calm himself, Steve spun around to face the group. "Can we all," he made eye contact with each and every one of them, "please. Please. Just try not to make a mess, or kill anyone, or break anything. For once?" He pleaded, taking in the horrified looks and noting that maybe he should try begging more often, damn his pride.

"Steve," it was Natasha who interjected, but he stopped her with a curt,

"Not now. We've got to try and up our image, we've got to -"

"Steve," this time it was Bruce.

"Darling," Tony took a deep breath and tapped Steve's shoulder, "shouldn't you be wearing oven gloves?" Steve looked down at his bare hand, still clutching the oven hot tray, and suddenly the pain hit him.

"Shit!" he howled, dropping the tray immediately and watching as its contents scattered onto the floor. He shut his eyes tight for a moment, and when he opened them the fight had left him and he leant on the counter, running his hand under a cold tap whilst Tony fluttered around him worriedly. He didn't complain about making a mess again.

 

Soon, too soon, it was time for the meals to be judged. Steve was the only person who didn't manage to present anything to the taster, running a hand through his hair and apologising. After tasting Wade and Tony's creations, both deemed an absolute nightmare, to Peter's displeasure, the taster was glad to have one less food to taste. Pietro's was burnt, Wanda's was dry and Sam's had been broken into little pieces somehow, which was probably something to do with why Wanda looked so smug.

"What happened here?" the taster asked, upon reaching a meal which seemed cooked to perfection but was plated so sloppily that sauce had managed to get on the bottom of the plate.

"I was going for a modern art approach," Bruce explained lazily, turning to Wade to whisper quickly, "I couldn't be bothered." Wade could relate.

"Well cooked," the taster coughed at the next dish, "I'm detecting a hint of paprika?"

"Well done!" Thor congratulated him, "I used half as much as I usually would, so I wasn't sure you would taste it, but Bucky insisted that it was enough!" Looking eternally grateful for Bucky, as most people normally were, he moved on.

Peter's was next, and the man looked confused, wondering if his taste buds had been permanently ruined by the burning amount of spice Thor had used or if this really tasted the way he thought it did. "It tastes like ramen noodles," he marvelled, "there was no ramen flavour. How did you do this?"

"It's a special skill," Peter shrugged. 

By this time, the taster was very visibly losing the will to live, so much so that he didn't bat an eye when Natasha's was elegantly served on a sharp knife that he knew for a fact was not from this kitchen. Relieved, he turned to the last meal and looked up eagerly to congratulate Clint. "This is served perfectly! I can't wait to eat it. Everyone, take notes from -" the second he put the fork in his mouth any attempt at words failed. He gagged twice, trying to swallow but unable to force himself to, before finally spitting the mouthful back onto the plate. "Did you shit in this?" he exploded, causing Clint to shake his head, cracking up laughing.

"Everyone, take note," Clint ordered. "You've gotta make your food look wonderful, but taste bad enough to kill!"

"Well," the taster was actually washing his mouth out with water, "you've still got to make dessert. But," he looked about him, "I think you're competent enough to do it without supervision. You can eat them on your own at the end. Good day!"

"Wow," Tony whistled as he left, "and they really thought Clint would miss out on the chance to poison somebody. Not our fault the general public is ridiculously naive." Steve wondered if Thor had any mead.

 

"I'm out of sugar," Wade announced, to the surprise of absolutely no-one. "All I've got left is salt and pepper." He looked thoughtful, an expression which struck fear into the hearts of anyone that saw it, and Bucky caught on quickly.

"Wade no," he warned, making an aborted movement forwards. It was too late.

"Wade yes!" not even bothering to measure it, the salt was poured on top of the eggs and vanilla extract followed quickly by the pepper. Somehow, Peter still thought it tasted amazing. "Go yell at Sam," Wade waved a hand in the general direction of the man, who was entirely competent at baking but had added three times as much coconut as necessary.

"I like coconut," he shrugged. "Sue me." 

Bruce was entirely focussed on measuring, down to the last picogram, which drew the attention of the rest of the bakers. Proudly, he produced a sketch worthy of the Great British Bake-Off, which depicted a half green, half white cake. The green half was mint, and the white half vanilla, although where he had got mint from was anyone's guess. Having decided that this was a hilarious thing to do, he graciously gifted the remains of his butter and icing sugar to Thor, who was determined to make a tower of buttercream so tall that it wouldn't fit in his mouth. Knowing Thor's dedication to food, he would succeed.

Natasha swiftly gave up on her cake, deciding that it would be more fun to throw the mixture at Clint. Seeing him dripping with lumpy batter, the rest of the Avengers agreed.

"Why," Vision asked Tony, eyeing his cake with suspicion, "are there so many ball bearings on?"

"I can hear if someone steals my cakes," Tony announced, clearly proud of himself. Seconds later he threw a pointed glare at Vision when a loud CRUNCH accompanied the gust of wind they had come to associate with Pietro doing something stupid. Before the wrath of Tony could fall upon Pietro, however, he slipped on the trail of slime that Clint was leaving behind him, and slammed into a nearby counter with a painful-sounding thud. Peter looked up from where he was eating a hellish mixture of the uncooked cake batter and the buttercream, watched Pietro wail for a bit in search of pity, and returned to eating with a shrug. In the end, it was Wanda that slipped her brother a cake before he threw a tantrum.

Steve, having given up on even pretending to look after his team, was enjoying icing his cakes, although he enjoyed eating the icing even more. Together with Vision, who had thrown masses of sprinkles onto his cakes, they polished off half of the bowl of royal icing. Bucky followed suit with his buttercream.

"Steve," Sam sighed, pinching his nose and trying to fight off an incoming migraine, "we've lost Scott again." Steve looked up sharply, and Sam braced himself for another tirade of disappointment, but instead Steve just held out the bowl of rainbow-coloured icing and a spoon, which Sam gratefully began to eat. It took a few minutes for Scott to return, this time standing on top of his cakes on the counter, completely squashing them and covering himself in buttercream.

"I got stuck," he explained, looking a little down but not letting dirt from his shoe stop him from enjoying his cakes.

When May returned, wincing at the sight of the kitchen, almost all of the cakes had been destroyed, and ingredients littered the floor. The only cakes left standing were Clint's, glazed beautifully in icing, looking so inviting that she automatically moved to take one, stopped only by the Avengers yelling "NO", and Vision literally slapping the cake out of her hand. In May's defence, she didn't question it, assuming that there must be a good reason for this.

"So, I know for sure you guys are going to enjoy this one," May announced as they left the manor for the open fields surrounding it, although the fear in her eyes contradicted the confident words. "I'm going to split you into two teams, put you on opposite sides of a river, and you have to build a bridge that meets in the middle. Simple, right?"

"Not...exactly," Vision replied cautiously, but there was nothing he or anyone else could do to prevent them being shepherded towards the river, which was really more of a dirty creek. The teams, May decided by separating all people standing too close to each other, would be Steve, Pietro, Sam, Natasha, Thor, Bucky and Wade against Tony, Peter, Wanda, Clint, Vision, Scott and Bruce. 

"That's unfair!" Tony pouted. "They've got all the strong ones!" Before Wanda could take offence, Sam shot back,

"You've got all the smart ones!" 

Being Tony, he took the compliment without complaint, knowing that he wouldn't get many more from anyone except Steve. Brief though this interaction was, it gave May the time to slip away, leaving them complaining loudly but getting down to the task.

Bruce sat down, looking for all the world as if he had already given up, but when pressed merely told them that he was working out all of the angles. Whether or not he actually was was anyone's guess, but Vision joined him too, so they were left to it. Steve and Pietro, in contrast, had no idea what to do and so were trying to pile up wood close to the riverbank as fast as they could, hoping that someone else would do the actual building (here Steve looked pleadingly at Bucky, who refused to make eye contact). When, sooner than they had hoped, they ran out of wood, Steve turned to the forest behind them, ripping tree trunks in half with his bare hands while Tony watched in undisguised awe. This was lucky, however, as Thor had decided to use Mjolnir as a hammer, ruining planks at the same rate that Steve was creating them.

"Wade," Pietro begged, seeing that Steve had given up on trying to find a way for their group to make a bridge, "you always think outside of the box! Can't you help?"

Wade shrugged, nonchalantely munching on a chimichanga. "Sorry folks, being helpful isn't part of the job description."

"Isn't...isn't being helpful exactly our job description?" Sam asked, but all the response he got from Wade was a tip of the chimichanga in his general direction. An ear-splitting scream erupted from the other side of shit creek, leaving everyone cringing and wondering why anyone would ever make such an obnoxious sound.

"Who," Clint panted, eyes slightly filled with tears, "leaves nails lying on the ground POINTY SIDE UP?" Peter went beet red, which may have been an indication that he did it if it wasn't for the fact that Peter acted guilty of everything, regardless of if he had actually done it. Clint pointed a shaking finger at him nonetheless, muttering curses under his breath as Wanda shepherded him under a nearby patch of trees, telling him to go lie down for a while. Peter desperately shook his head as Natasha glared at him, squeaking his innocence in desperate fear, but to no avail. He floundered for a way to please her before Wanda came to his aid once again, making direct eye contact with Natasha as she pushed Tony into the water, for the simple crime of standing within 5 feet of the bank. It didn't do much to make Natasha forgive Peter, but at least she smiled briefly before disappearing over to talk to Clint, probably plotting Peter's doom.

"What are you doing in the water?" Vision stood up to peer over the river bank at Tony, who was coughing indignantly. "No, no, don't get up," he laid a passive hand on Tony's chest and gave him a gentle push backwards, leaving him staggering down and landing on his back in the water once again, "now that you're in there we could use you."

"Steve, they're bullying me!" Tony whined as his group laughed, although the mirth shone through his eyes.

"I'll warm you up later," Steve winked, turning bright red as he did so as if Tony had been flirting with him and not the other way round, so Tony couldn't complain. Even Natasha and Clint joined in, returning from where they had been doing something probably illegal to splash Tony.

"Oh my GOD get it off get it off there's an ant on me oh my GOD there are hundreds in the water get me OUT!" Tony erupted, having turned to see what was touching his bare arm only to witness an entire army of ants rafting their way towards the group. Peter, despite not being anywhere near the water, leapt approximately eight foot in the air and started to make a run for it, held back by Scott who was desperately trying to explain that he had summoned the ants to help.

"They're strong," he tried to explain, endearingly excited about the ants, "and they won't hurt you!"

"If we build it fast, the ants will go away?" Peter whimpered, and, at Scott's nod, sent out shots of web so fast that even Pietro had to be impressed. Less impressive by far, however, was the end result, a conglomeration of boards loosely held together by web that were somehow so out of line with each other that they almost made a complete 180 turn, before collapsing down onto Tony's head with a splash, leaving the ants coasting the wave.

"Maybe get rid of the bugs?" Bruce suggested, and in the end Scott had to agree.

"Sam!" Natasha complained suddenly, "Why aren't you doing anything?"

Smartly not pointing out that Natasha was also not doing anything, Sam went for a cool, "Style over substance, Nat. Style over substance."

She pushed him in.

The group had to give up after Wanda attempted to use her powers to hold the bridge up, but the effort of holding that many blocks and the weight of the team led to her almost passing out.

"You do realise," Bucky pointed out, "that this is, in fact, a very shallow river. We can walk through it." In proof, he marched steadfastly to the other team, the water only coming up to his shins, and turned back proudly. "Was that so hard?"

This time it was Bruce that did the pushing in.

When May returned, the whole group was in the creek, with smashed up planks of wood and bent nails littering the vicinity. Choosing, wisely, not to ask, she ushered them on to the next activity.

By the time the group had failed at making tracks for balls out of gutters, and at untangling knots, it was getting to be late afternoon. For once May seemed genuinely happy as she appeared to take them to whatever it was they would be doing next, and it didn't take long for everyone to see why.

The room that they were deposited in was massive, and seemed to come directly out of Tony's best dreams, or at least one of the ones that didn't involve Steve dressed as a sexy mailman. One of the sides was entirely taken over by a bar, with more alcohol than could safely be around the Avengers, while the rest of the room was littered with games, from pool and table football to casino tables and slot machines. May splayed her hands out, looking for all the world like Tony at an awards ceremony, as she let them drink it in. 

"Welcome to the adult centre!" she laughed. "I'm going to be staying with you for this, and you can make cocktails and play games until you're sick of it."

"We'll be here all week," Sam muttered.

"Please," Steve begged, prepared to make a reqest he had never made before, "please can we drink before we do anything. Is there anything here strong enough for the rest of us? Thor, Thor do you have anything?" Safe in the knowledge that Thor had stored away five bottles of mead, and not wanting to even think about where they could have come from, Steve relaxed enough that Clint felt comfortable sliding over the bar to gaze in love and awe at the alcohol.

"I'm going to make all of you a drink," he announced, ignoring the looks of fear as people remembered the food he had made, "I'm going to make all of you a very special drink that I think suits you perfectly." He got as far as picking up a single glass before Wade physically removed it from his hands and pushed him away.

"If anyone here is going to be the bartender it will be me," he replied, marking the beginnings of a scuffle between most of the Avengers over who would be the better bartender, while Thor and Steve drank and watched as though it was a thrilling game of tennis. In the end, Bruce won, both because they were afraid of angering him and because everyone agreed that he would make the best drinks. 

While Bruce got to work, the rest of the team spread out, taking over the various tables of games. Peter immediately declared himself king of the ping-pong table, while Tony and Clint duelled it out on foosball and Steve and Bucky played a game of pool which, with increasing amounts of mead, devolved into a duel with the pool cues.

By the end of the night, everyone was pleasantly tipsy bordering on aggressively drunk, playing poker together and betting more and more unreasonable things as they ran out of chips but not the desire to play, including kissing Steve (Tony), a mansion (also Tony), not having to get up at 6 tomorrow (May) and kissing Steve (Steve). Eventually, May forced them to wrap it up, threats of an even earlier start hanging over their heads as they made their ways up to their rooms. 

"Bright and early tomorrow to meet your new teammate!" She called after them, before shutting the door and abandoning to barrage of questions that followed her.


End file.
